The conference chairs of the media architecture Biennale 2012, Ava Fatah Gen Schieck and Peter Dalsgaard, talk about the selection process for the conference. They explain how media architecture is a broad field that is being explored by different practitioners and thinkers. “On the one hand, you have traditional media façade papers; people going out and building these things and talking about their experiences. But it actually spans a much broader spectrum. So for instance we also have papers about soundscapes. We have discussions of theoretical aspects; frameworks we see emerging around ways of understanding media architecture, and how people are experiencing it – and also political papers.”

Ava Fatah and Peter are also the conference chairs for the MAB14. This year 39 papers from 23 different countries were submitted. We are looking forward for the 2014 conference!

In 2013 the Serpentine Gallery commissioned architect Sou Fujimoto to design a temporary structure in the surrounding areas of the gallery. The Pavillion was constructed from 20mm steel poles arranged in a complex latticework that created a cloud-like structure. The structure occupied an area of 350 square-meter, yet its delicate structure blended itself with landscape of the gallery. The architect described this free-flowing space as a transparent terrain.

United visual artists (UVA) temporarily transformed the Serpentine Gallery’s summer pavilion, bringing the structure to life with lights installed in the matrix designed by Sou Fujimoto. The performative installation of UVA aims to make the architecture “breathe” around the people, as the light patters slide rapidly through the structure. The installation of UVA explores thoroughly the 3D possibilities offered by the pavilion, highlighting and deconstructing volumes with light. For this piece UVA reference their past works which, similar to Fujimoto’s, rely on geometric foundations and interests.

To create the installation, LED strips encased in plastic tubes were attached with magnets to the temporary pavilion’s steel grid. The performance was accompanied with thunder-like sounds, created by the artists by mixing samples of the hums and buzzes of electric power stations and synthesised sounds.

The aim of the Motor City Mapping project is to support the renaissance or the creation of strong neighborhoods. Many buildings and homes in Detroit have good structural conditions, often with remarkable architecture and beautiful features, yet they are abandoned because of the blight that surrounds them. When the inhabitants realize that there is no future for their neighborhood’s they are simply forced to move somewhere else.

To counteract this trend, it is crucial to accelerate the process of demolishing the vacant buildings in poor conditions. However, identifying such buildings is an enormous task, that requires man force, inventiveness and a bit of technology. The Blight Removal Task Force was created to provide the City of Detroit with a blight removal system that use all the existing resources in Detroit and suggests new recommendations to set up a scalable, efficient, and environmentally safe strategy. As part of this strategy the Task force teamed up with Data Driven Detroit and Loveland Technologies to create a system to report, store and process the data related to structures in poor conditions.

Light Barrier is an art installation by Kimchi and Chips (Elliot Woods and Mimi Son). The installation premiered on 4–6 June 2014 at the New Media Night festival, a digital arts event including experimental music and workshops in Russia.

The installation crosses millions of light beams to create phantoms of light in the air. The rays are coordinated and directed towards single points. The combination of points generates shapes which float within its environment. This creates the impressive, ephemeral effect of the installation, where shapes magically appear, wander around and fade away. With this installation the artists explore the light barrier as a metaphor; a universal law which stops anything from travelling faster than a photon. The installation exposes exotic phenomena which serve to reinforce these fundamental laws.

Dangerous by design is a report created by Smart Growth America that addresses pedestrian safety in the roads of the U.S.A. Along with the statistics of each state and the nation-wide numbers, it includes a couple of interactive maps that let the visitor explore the statistics about pedestrian fatalities in the U.S.A.

Ninety Six is a site specific installation created by Nils Völker for the exhibition Höhenrausch at the OÖ Kulturquartier in Linz, Austria. It comprises 96 plastic arranged in a matrix. The plastic bags can be individually inflated and deflated in different rhythms that create wavelike animations in the wall. While each bag is mounted in a fixed position, the sequences of inflation and deflation create the impression of lively movements. Forms appear from the plastic bag matrix and disappear back into the surface. In this way shapes and the boundaries of the installation itself start to dissolve.

Commonplace is developing a web-based sentiment mapping application that monitors social networks to identify the citizen’s feelings in regard to public transport, road traffic, commuting nodes and other transport infrastructures. It is being developed in collaboration with the Royal College of Art, a leader in the application of design led thinking.

The goals of the project are ambitious. The idea is to combine information of different sources, like weather stations, social media, and official reports to help the passengers plan their journeys in an efficient and stress-free way.

The project is still in a very early phase of development. However, a simple prototype that fetches, stores and displays tweets concerning multiple transport modes is already available. The current version shows an area between London and Milton Keynes, where the passenger’s sentiments are shown in red and green blobs. Another graphic shows the evolution of the mood during the day, including those about trains, buses and tubes.

The facade of the SESI-SP digital art gallery was inaugurated in 2012, as a result of a pioneer initiative of Verve Cultural in São Paulo. The “Luís Eulálio de Bueno Vidigal Filho” building, was erected in 1979 at the cultural epicenter of the city. With its particular pyramidal form, the building has been an icon of the urban life in São Paulo, and now plays an important role in the landscape of the city. Recently its facade was turned into the first open air gallery of Latin America. With an electric consumption of 4,5 kVA, the same as a normal residential house, the electronic infrastructure has 26 thousands LED clusters. The system allows the display of 4,3 millions of colors.

In its opening, with the SP Digital Urban Festival, the platform was mainly used for the display of visual works. The aim was to create a new channel for cultural dissemination as part of the city, promoting the integration of art in urban space through the visualization of magnetic waves, flows of information and the visual expression of São Paulo’s pulse and rhythm. Later some interfaces have been implemented for direct interaction with the public, for example during the Play! exhibition, which was inspired by the universe of video games and highlighted the cultural value of Game Art.

Maerker is a web-based application that lets the citizens of Brandenburg report issues with the infrastructure of their municipality. The project is already available for about 60 communities in Brandenburg, including Postdam, the state capital. Recently the project has been also implemented in Berlin, where three out of its twelve boroughs offer Maerker services as well.

It is a simple system that lets the citizens participate actively in the administration of their municipality. Maerker forces the bureaucracy to react in an open way to the request of the citizens. The answers to the issues submitted fosters better coordination between institutions, giving to the actual concerns of the population the highest priority.

There is a wide variety of problems that can be reported. From illegally disposed waste through to road damages or failures in traffic lights. The local administrations provide feedback about the report’s current status. With a traffic-light like system it is possible to identify the current status of an issue. Red means that the issue is pending to be reviewed, yellow shows that the problem has been identified and is in process of being solved. Green represents a problem fixed.
(more…)

Submergence is an installation by the international art group Squidsoup. It is the result of a year-long exploration that started back in 2008 when they created two LED cubes in collaboration with the ETH-Zurich. Later, they continued their exploration and created an installation larger enough to fill a room but too delicate to let the visitors walk through. With submergence the squidsoup team finally achieved the dream of an immersive light and sound experience.

Submergence is made of nearly 400 LED strings hanged from the ceiling. The whole installation has around 8,000 color lights that can be addressed individually. When the visitors walk through the installation it reacts in different ways. It might follow the movements of the persons, avoid them or eventually it will create a dazzling audio-visual experience.